SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) - Starting Tuesday, unvaccinated people will no longer have to wear their masks in many indoor settings.
The news was announced by state leaders on Monday.
"I think it's fair to say we're in a hugely different place in the pandemic. We have vaccines, we have lots of natural immunities, we have therapeutics so if you feel comfortable I do think it's the right time to unmask,” Dr. Monica Gandhi said.
Starting March 1, regardless of vaccination status, people can go unmasked in most indoor spaces.
Dr. Monica Gandhi with UCSF says the decision better aligns the state with CDC guidelines and is based on hospitalization rates.
"They just put in hospitalization rates and the reason they did that is partially because we've had so much infection from omicron surge. There's one estimate that 75 percent of Americans have had omicron and that lead to a lot of natural immunity,” Dr. Gandhi said.
"Almost everyone got infected with omicron at some point, even if you don't know it," Dr. Peter Chin-Hong said.
Everyone will still have to wear masks in high-transmission settings like public transit and health care settings.
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong also added doctors now have more tools to help COVID-positive patients.
"There are interventions now, even for unvaccinated people to keep them away from the hospitals,” Dr. Chin-Hong said.
He says he doesn't expect to see an uptick in cases in the coming weeks.
"I think that the numbers will continue to go down now that there's a huge amount of community immunity right now," Dr. Chin-Hong said.
Dr. Gandhi has been looking at data out of the UK, they removed their masks about four weeks ahead of us.
"And they haven't seen any increase in severe disease and that is good sign if you have high rates in immunity that you're not going to get into trouble with that," Dr. Gandhi said.
But both doctors are still encouraging the unvaccinated, to get vaccinated.
"There's a lot of good data that shows us hybrid immunity, if you have natural infection and you get one dose of the vaccine that you have much more durable immunity," Dr. Gandhi said.
Individual city or county can set their own guidelines.
Via Coronavirus | KRON4 https://www.kron4.com
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